Profiles-Richard
Lewontin

Richard
C. Lewontin is an evolutionary geneticist, philosopher
of science, and social critic. He is best known among biologists
for his role in the development of molecular population genetics
in the 1960s and 1970s, especially the use of electrophoresis
to study the evolutionary implications of enzyme polymorphisms.
The two 1966 papers that he co-authored with J.L. Hubby on
this topic are considered to be classics in the field. His
1972 article on "The Apportionment of Human Diversity,"
in which he argues that genetic variation is greater within
"races" than between them, is considered a landmark
paper in human genetics and is still frequently cited. Further,
his classic 1974 work, The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary
Change, is still required reading both aspiring population
geneticists and philosophers of evolutionary biology.

Lewontin received his A.B. from Harvard College in 1951 and
his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1954, where he was a
student of Theodosius Dobzhansky. After professorships at
North Carolina State University, University of Rochester and
University of Chicago (where he served as Chairman of the
Program in Evolutionary Biology from 1968-1973), Lewontin
moved to Harvard University in 1973, where he has been ever
since. He is currently Alexander Agassiz Research Professor
there.

Lewontin's reputation, however, is not based simply on his
many scientific and academic accomplishments. Over the past
30 years, he has turned his critical gaze toward the ways
that biology is done and the place of science in society.
In numerous books and articles, including Biology as Ideology,
Not in Our Genes, and The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism,
and Environment, he has challenged molecular biologists
and geneticists to think about the living world more holistically
than is currently fashionable. Lewontin is well-known for
his scathing critiques of the rhetoric used by scientists
to gain public support and funding for the Human Genome Project.
Additionally, he has been concerned for many years with questions
about the genetic and non-genetic variables that influence
behavioral traits like intelligence and temperament.

Selected Bibliography:

R.C. Lewontin, "The effects of population density
and composition on viability in Drosophila melanogaster,"
Evolution 9 (1955): 27-41.

R.C. Lewontin, "A general method for investigating
the equilibrium of gene frequency in a population,"
Genetics 43 (1958): 419-434.

J. L. Hubby and R. C. Lewontin, "A Molecular Approach
to the Study of Genic Heterozygosity in Natural Populations.
I. The Number of Alleles at Different Loci in Drosophila
pseudoobscura," Genetics 54 (1966): 546-595.

R.C. Lewontin, "What do population geneticists know
and how do they know it?," in R. Creath and J. Maienschen
(eds.), Biology and Epistemology (Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 191-214.

R.C. Lewontin, It Ain't Necessarily So: The Dream of
the Human Genome and Other Illusions (New York: New
York Review of Books, 2000).